delight
His daughter's video saved the shoe shop from closing
The closing sale sign was already up. Then, a video.
A single TikTok video about a pair of Y2K kitten heels has turned Rich Collection Italia, a struggling vintage shoe shop in East London, into a store with two-hour lines outside the door. Rachid Lazraq has run the shop on Hackney Road in Shoreditch for more than 30 years, but online shopping and an aging clientele had pushed it toward a closing sale. Then his 25-year-old daughter, a London journalist, noticed a French influencer had called the shop a hidden gem. She posted her own video on July 7. It got 300,000 views overnight. "He usually had older, regular clients, but they'd been petering out over the years," Ms. Lazraq said. "Now he has a whole new set of clientele." She first knew something had shifted when her dad messaged the family group chat about some young French girls in the shop, which was unusual. Lazraq later ripped down his closing sale sign while customers applauded.
